Opera [in Greek]

Publisher [Bartolommeo di Libri for Bernardus Nerlius, Nerius Nerlius, Demetrius Damilas, Florence, not before 13 January 1488/89]

Printer [Bartolommeo di Libri, Florence]

Binder Rivière, London

Author Homer (Greek, 9th or 8th century BCE)

Date1488/1489

Mediumletterpress on white laid paper (typeface: Greek font)

ClassificationBooks

Object number

1937.6A-B

Not on View

Label TextFlorence took to printing with less enthusiasm than Venice, even though it was a thriving business there. Wealthy Florentine citizens who wanted books preferred to have them copied on vellum by the finest Italian calligraphers. However, scholars welcomed the German invention of printing which spared them the expense and labor in obtaining manuscript books for study. Thus, most books printed in fifteenth-century Florence were classics for scholars, or small booklets of a religious or popular nature for the lower classes. This magnificent two-volume edition of the ancient Greek poet Homer's epic works, printed in Greek, answered the market demands of Florentine scholars. The first volume contains biographies of Homer by Herodotus and Plutarch, and a dedication letter (in Latin printed in roman type) from the printer to Pietro de Medici. The second volume contained the ILIAD, the ODYSSEY, and other literary works. The handsome nineteenth-century binding by Robert Rivere, an English bookbinder of French decent, features four low relief designs, one for each cover: Achilles and Thetis, Zeus and Hera, Odysseus and Penelope, and Odysseus and Calypso.